The Woodstock Film Festival, an annual be-in of progressive filmmakers, musicians, and artists, will return to the Hudson Valley from October 1 through 5. For nearly its entire existence, the event has languished in the guttering twilight of the Bush administration, whose agenda remains antithetical in extremis to the ultra-liberal values that birthed WFF. The result has been a film festival whose impact and relevance have, ironically, grown as America (and, by extension, the world) has taken a battering.
Each year, WFF manages to skirt the growing pains that other independent festivals suffer and re-emerge as a no-frills gathering of the faithful. Celebrity-politicos and indie studio icons are lauded, counterculture phenomena are celebrated, and cult actors walk Tinker Street to polite acclaim. And, yes, that is indeed ‘60s folkie-sprite-mystic Donovan walking through the crowds this year, to support a new documentary about his multi-hued career.
Cofounders Meira Blaustein and Laurent Rejto continue to guard the ideals of the festival, culling a number of provocative and remarkable works from the 2,100 film entries this year. WFF award recipients this month include cinematographer and unreconstructed leftie Haskell Wexler (see interview), who will be given the WFF’s first lifetime achievement award. Producer-director Kevin Smith, whose penchant for comic books and poo jokes cannot mask a skewed brilliance, receives the annual Maverick Award. (His latest foray into humane outrageousness, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, closes this year’s festival.) Focus Features CEO James Schamus is honored with the Trailblazer Award. The cofounder of indie pioneer production company Good Machine, Schamus has always shown unerring and unwavering taste in championing artists like Todd Solondz, Todd Haynes, and his longtime collaborator, Ang Lee (The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain).
As the WFF has grown, so has the Bush juggernaut. The trade-off was that the reign of terror provided WFF filmmakers with ample material for films about injustices perpetrated upon the planet and its people: pre-emptive war, institutionalized racism, unemployment, ecological insanity. At the same time, the WFF could equally be relied upon for fun; the film program always allows its freak flag to fly. Documentaries and narratives revisit the back-to-the-garden counterculture that now seems poised, by necessity, to return.
A measure of fatalism bubbles up when you feel the world is collapsing about you, despite your efforts to wake the populace through the arts. And, more often than not since 2000, the WFF has seemed like an Irish wake: a raucous and mournful celebration of a world fast disappearing, despite our best efforts to save it. Perhaps the growing power of the Obama-Biden ticket will reverse the defensive, whistling-in-the graveyard mood among participants and artists that has palpably marked past festivals.
Wear your love beads and join the family.
For a full schedule of the Woodstock Film Festival, as well as the locations of all venues offering tickets, films, concerts, panels, and parties that will swallow the region for four days, visit www.woodstockfilmfestival.com.
CAPSULE REVIEWS OF FILMS SHOWING AT THE FESTIVAL
Of a roster of nearly 150 films this year—10 of them world premieres—the following were made available for preview. While they range, predictably, from the sophomoric to the sublime, there seems a surfeit of vital works in the festival this year. Not one of the 32 works screened can be dismissed out of hand. Even the few that were thematically earnest, visually cloying, or politically naive still commanded attention.
[* Denotes Chronogram film critic favorite.]
NARRATIVE FEATURES:
* 32 A (dir. Marian Quinn)—In an era when Judd Apatow has sewn up the American youth movie, for better of for worse, this tale of female adolescence in 1989 Ireland is refreshingly snark-free. Schoolgirl Maeve (Ailish McCarthy) has spirit to spare and a mouth she unleashes freely. But when a local boy in this seacoast town woos her, she yields to the first bittersweet taste of romantic love. Keenly observed and sweetly vulgar, this film offers numerous small joys and an unsentimental look back at the ‘80s. With Ulster County resident Aidan Quinn (brother of the director) and Jared Harris.
EDGE OF TOWN (dir. Christopher Ciancimino)—Promising debut by NYU film student Ciancimino, this short teases and then haunts with evocative cinematography and a fragmented storyline that explains why a local girl is found dead in the woods.
EXPLICIT ILLS (dir. Mark Webber)—The camera forever roves in this portrait of inner-city Philadelphians, some rich, some poor, all yearning for what they think they lack. Writer-director Webber fills his tale with elliptical characterizations of a genial drug dealer, a rich girl turned artist, a man hoping to open a health food store, and a small boy suffering from asthma. Every single frame resembles a painting, which may excuse the sketchy depictions. The vibe of this film can be summed up in one character exchange. She: “This is depressing.” He: “But it’s good for us as artists.” Starring Rosario Dawson and Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood) and executive-produced by Ulster County resident Jim Jarmusch.
GOSPEL HILL (dir. Giancarlo Esposito)—Radiating a distinct John Sayles vibe, this tale of injustice in a small Southern town has a gallery of boldly drawn characters, the economy of a conventional short story, and a reassuring amount of character reformation to reaffirm your faith in the world. As townspeople prepare to honor the memory of a fallen civil rights leader, ghosts of the past lie in waiting. The surfeit of 11th-hour reconciliations make this crowd-pleaser perfect for HBO on a Saturday evening. Starring Angela Bassett and Danny Glover.
* I’LL COME RUNNING (dir. Spenser Parsons)—A late-night hook-up between Veronica, a Mexican restaurant waitress, and Pelle, a cranky Danish tourist, seems typical enough: they exchange pet names, have lots of sex, and wonder how to say goodbye. But the cutesy narrative falls away when Pelle dies in a crash en route to the airport. Veronica, feeling something between tragic love and guilt, travels to Denmark to learn more about Pelle. A preposterous plotline courting incredulity nonetheless works, thanks to marvelously understated performances by an ensemble cast, especially Melonie Diaz as Veronica and Christian Taldrup as Soren, Pelle’s best friend. Shot in Austin, Texas and Arbus, Denmark.
IDIOTS AND ANGELS (dir. Bill Plympton)—Animator and philosopher Plympton draws a world of beleaguered men who fight with each other on the way to a dehumanizing office and are unable to connect with women, even in sexual congress. But Plympton is far from a misanthrope, and his latest work reminds us that man is in a constant struggle to regain his state of grace. (In this film, he has even sprouted a pair of angel wings.) His humor remains pitch-black, his images harsh and unsettling, but Plympton still maintains hope for his fellow man.
* JULIA (dir. Erick Zonca)—Indie film icon and Oscar winner for last year’s Michael Clayton, Tilda Swinton beguiles and assaults with a powerhouse performance as an alcoholic unable to distinguish between self-sabotage and salvation. Her brash seductions and breathtaking rationalizations land her in a scheme to kidnap the young heir to an electronics fortune. Veering between psychological portrait and an unlikely road-buddy film, Julia benefits from strong cinematography and meticulous plotting for most of the film. Memorable turns by Kate Del Castillo as the fellow 12-stepper and Aidan Gould as the kidnaped son.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (dir. Tomas Alfredson)—This tender tale of awkward 1970s adolescent romance involves Oskar, a lonely boy, and Eli, the goth girl next door who teaches him to stand up to the school bullies. But Eli is not a Sisters of Mercy fan; she’s a member of the Undead, but her love for Eli keeps her from feeding on him. Overripe dialogue and cheesy, Argento-type horror effects threaten to make this Swedish-Norwegian vampire film a genre-busting laugh-riot, but sensitive lead performances by Kare Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson will squelch any mocking impulses.
MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (dir. Barry Jenkins)—This wistful tale of a one-night stand that bleeds over, unexpectedly, into another day and night, should be remarkable for more than just the fact that the star-crossed lovers are middle-class African-Americans. But this a film industry that still shortchanges the Black Experience unless the storyline is hip-hop or a Tyler Payne morality play. Director-writer Barry Jenkins depicts a San Francisco more gray than sunny, abetted by cinematographer Jamie Laxton. The director has an agenda that extends beyond sexual politics; his leads discuss housing for the poor and he plunks a real-life debate among housing activists smack into the middle of the film.
NATURAL CAUSES (dir. Alex Cannon, Paul Cannon and Michael Lerman)—Scenes from a slacker relationship. A chance meeting of 20-something boy and girl is followed by wisecracks and water balloons, observations about grilled cheese sandwiches and one-night-stand etiquette. But amid the elliptical conversation (and moody lighting), young love inexplicably grows. Shot in a documentary style that favors fly-on-the-wall scenes to clever banter, this film grows on you. Owing to the trio of men at the helm as writer-directors, boyfriend David (from the John Mayer school of lanky, curly-haired, puppydogs) has all of the best soul-searching lines. Stars Jerzy Gwiazdowski and Leah Goldstein are never facile, offering vulnerable, multilayered performances.
* THE NEW YEAR PARADE (dir. Tom Quinn)—A bookend of sorts to Earthly Ills, this depiction of a troubled Irish neighborhood in Philadelphia is set against the annual Mummers parade. Writer-director-cinematographer-editor Quinn knows his neighborhood intimately and trusts the small-scale human dramas that grow organically from crushed dreams and pickled livers. When Veteran’s Stadium implodes, it’s the perfect metaphor for a way of life also due to disappear. Naturalistic performances—especially by Jennifer-Lynn Welsh as the rudderless daughter in a divorcing family—make up for the occasional slackness of the plot.
* PAPER COVERS ROCK (dir. Joe Maggio)—Kudos to a male writer-director for successfully grasping and illuminating the travails of a woman coping with divorce and the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt. Sam (Jeannie Kaspar) is forced to move in with her Brooklyn sister Ed (Sayra Player) after being released from Bellevue. While recuperating, she must struggle to recapture her life while battling the presumptions of a society that does not understand episodic mental illness. Cinematography by Sam Shinn captures the nightmarish and oddly beautiful aspects of city life.
* THE PRIDE (dir. Gerard Hurley)—Writer-director-star Gerard Hurley (a Tivoli resident) has created a poignant but never mawkish tale of a drunk battling his Black Irish demons while hoping for redemption. Just released from prison, Mickey heads home to his estranged wife Sarah, who carries the memory of her last beating at his hands. Evenly matched for Gaelic stubbornness, passion, and profanity, the two circle each other warily over the next few days. Nancy McNultey fully inhabits Sarah, and the other actors are seamless. A modern successor to the “angry young man” genre of the ‘50s and ‘60s, this film radiates a woeful lyricism.
* THE SECRET OF THE GRAIN (dir. Abdellatif Kechiche)—A deeply felt portrait of a family of Tunisian immigrants living in a hostile France, this film is equally a lacerating character study and a sociological document. Driven from his job on the waterfront, an aging patriarch named Slimane Beiji feels useless, despite the love of his children, his mistress, and his begrudging ex-wife. When he plans to open a restaurant on a boat, the entire family puts aside its petty grievances and pitches in to make the opening night a success. At this point, a raft of plot contrivances throw off-kilter what had been a profound character study. But the film retains its power, thanks to an ensemble cast of breathtaking naturalism and set pieces that are mini-operas in themselves. Named best film of the year in France, and produced by master filmmaker Claude Berri (Jean de Florette), The Secret of the Grain is a classic.
TOKYO! (dir. Joon-ho Bong, Leos Carax and Michel Gondry)—Giddy weirdness abounds in this triptych of tales that take place in modern Tokyo. The best known of the directors is Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the more recent The Science of Sleep). His arch tale “Interior Design” concerns a man and woman at odds with one another while searching for digs. The least successful of the three is Leos Carax’s “Merde,” a sour slice of anarchy perhaps meant to tweak xenophobes and fans of the so-called War on Terror. Joon-Ho Bong’s “Shaking Tokyo” slyly proves that true love can conquer all—even agoraphobia. But at what cost? More puzzling than edifying, and more snarky than profound, these three works nonetheless reflect restless directorial minds that ask questions about the human condition.
VISIONEERS (dir. Jared Drake)—In a future that is already upon us, one corporation runs the world and has sucked the ambition from all of its employers. Those who dare to aspire to personal dreams eventually explode—literally. A deadpan view of a world where rampant consumerism is the only panacea and everyone eats fried chicken in buckets. When a drone named George tries to break out of his psychological cage, he comes under the scrutiny of the friendly fascists at the top. Alternately biting satire and soppy romance, this film has strong performances by Zach Galifianakis as George and Judy Greer as his narcotized wife. Bonus cameo by Aubrey Morris, (the school truant officer from A Clockwork Orange) as the misanthropic company boss.
WERE THE WORLD MINE (dir. by Tom Gustafson)—Tired of gay coming-of-age tales where the hapless homosexual must navigate the dangers of proms, lunchroom harassment, and menacing jocks? This overstuffed bonbon not only turns the tables on the oppressors, but does so with a Shakespearean subplot taken from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The resulting spectacle resembles a Maxfield Parrish painting crossed with an Erasure pop video.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURES:
* ALL TOGETHER NOW (dir. Adrian Wills)—If the name Cirque de Soleil shrieks preciousness and Las Vegas bloat, you will still be charmed by this examination of the staging of Love, the Beatles tribute destined to run forever at the Mirage. Propelled by an artistic vision, the show’s director-creator Dominic Champagne soon comes up against the micromanaging Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, who have differing visions on how their husbands’ musical legacies should be dramatized. Interviews with surviving Beatles Paul and Ringo will bring a tear to the eye of anyone born between 1950 and 1960; these boys are hardwired into our collective cultural hardware.
* AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD (dir. Dan Stone)—When did the exhortation “Save the Whales” become a cry of derision, poking fun at animal rights activists? This film should revitalize the slogan, as Japanese vessels still illegally harvest the rare mammals. To their rescue is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which challenges the whalers through often-violent ocean confrontations. Breathtaking footage of these oceanic duels, deckside and in the air, make this troubling film equally irresistible. Crisp editing by Patrick Gambuti, Jr. and Kurt Engfehr.
* THE BETRAYAL (co-dir. Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath)—A film 23 years in the making, and doubly fascinating because of it. An examination of a Laotian family that still struggles to understand their native country’s—and their father’s—criminal liaison with the United States during the Vietnam War. New footage is linked with 1985 video from the co-director’s first years as a Brooklyn teen transplant. The resulting synthesis is at once disorienting and illuminating. A haunting and compassionate portrait, amplified by the imagery of co-director Kuras, a cinematographer for several Spike Lee films, as well as for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
* BULLETPROOF SALESMAN (dir. Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker)—So long as countries battle one another and political strife foments, German businessman Fidelis Cloer is quite content. He sells armored cars. Three weeks after the fall of Baghdad, he passes through army checkpoints to walk among the rubble, inspecting sucide bomber sites and selling his latest car models to diplomats in danger. Cloer radiates a polished bragadoccio and spouts a number of business slogans that drive his work. Sample: “Chaos is opportunity.” But he’s also savvy enough to recognize the moral gray area of his livelihood. A complex portrait of a war profiteer.
* DIPLOMACY: THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (dir. Rasmus Dinesen and Boris B. Bertram)—In less than an hour, this compact and powerful film not only explains the crisis in Darfur but also examines how the United Nations Security Council has been dealing with the ongoing genocide in which more than 400,000 have been slaughtered. With an unwavering but uncynical eye, the film examines the challenges of maintaining relations with Sudan even as the Sudanese government denies its role in the killings. Heartbreaking.
FLYING ON ONE ENGINE (dir. Joshua Z Weinstein)—Saints come in unlikely human containers; Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, 77, croaks his words due to larynx cancer, lives in a rat-infested Queens apartment, travels mostly by wheelchair, and has an unruly bird’s nest of dyed hair and a taste for champagne. He is also known as “the messiah for the disfigured” for performing restorative plastic surgery on more than 140,000 Indian children with cleft palates. Fascinating and humbling.
GARRISON KEILLOR: THE MAN ON THE RADIO IN THE RED SHOES (dir. Peter Rosen)—A production of the PBS series “American Masters,” this is a respectful portrait of a man who created a literary world called Lake Woebegone, which has existed in the ether of radio since 1974. Keillor plays the genial host of this documentary, doling out homespun revelations with practiced candor while a group of fellow performers sings his praises, but admits he is hard to know. Chances are you will come away unable to divine between the real Keillor—if such a man exists—and his august radio show persona. With the late Robert Altman.
* GUEST OF CINDY SHERMAN (dir. Paul H-O and Tom Donahue)—A modern-day retelling of the Beauty and the Beast myth, SoHo-style. The boorish, puerile Paul H-O, a stalled sculptor on the Manhattan art scene who now hosts a cable access show, meets the elusive, enigmatic Cindy Sherman, already a legend for her photographic self-portraits. To everyone’s surprise—especially Paul’s—she falls for this unpolished doofus. H-O now has complete access to the art world, but remains an outsider, his sole identity as Sherman’s lover. A brash, whiny, and often repellent screed nonetheless offers the first insight into Sherman, while taking potshots at her world.
HI, MY NAME IS RYAN (dir. Paul Eagleston and Stephen Rose)—Ryan is a chubby eunuch-like kid of indeterminate age who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Rather than seek the counsel of a therapist for personality issues stemming from a narcissistic mother and a feckless father, Ryan has channelled his anger into being lead singer for a thrash band, making him a local celebrity. Whether his work is entertainment or unfiltered catharsis makes no nevermind to his many fans. Alternately stupefying and fascinating, this portrait of the artist as a young misfit challenges our definition of the parameters and purposes of art.
* IN A DREAM (dir. Jeremiah Zagar)—A visually powerful meditation on the price of freedom and the downside of artistic genius. Philadelphia demi-legend Isaiah Zagar channeled his manic creativity into numerous art forms, including mosaic coverings of seven buildings, inside and out. But a tenuous hold on reality, even during the laissez-faire ’60s, made life hard for his wife and children. Son Jeremiah showcases his father’s inner and outer worldviews through kinetic montages of his huge body of work. Here is a loving but unsparing psychological portrait of a family in decay that also exposes the intimacy issues of the voyeuristic director.
* KASSIM THE DREAM (dir. Kief Davidson)—Kassim Ouma, an international junior middleweight boxing champion, is both canonized and dissected in this exhaustive portrait. What starts as a reverential profile soon ends up cataloguing Ouma’s lack of self-discipline and taste for weed. The self-sabotage springs from a harrowing past; a young soldier kidnapped into the Ugandan rebel army, Ouma by age eight had killed several people. The camera tracks the fighter’s struggles in the ring and politically as an expatriate, and captures images that sing with life and color. Executive-produced by Forest Whitaker.
PRESSURE COOKER (dir. Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker)—In Philadelphia’s Frankford High School, bad attitudes carry the day until people graduate or drop out to the bleak world outside. But several students are learning culinary arts so they can compete in a cooking contest for college scholarships. Their teacher is a diminutive hardass named Wilma Stephenson, who alternately harangues and nurtures these kids, urging them not to be “ghetto-minded” in their culinary pursuits. While there is little dramatic tension, the story offers a great deal of heart.
* SUNSHINE SUPERMAN: THE JOURNEY OF DONOVAN (dir. by Hannes Rossacher)—Employing miles of rare footage, eye-popping animation, and a narrator no less accommodating than the artist himself, this portrait of the ’60s pop-chart success (11 Top 40 hits between 1966 and ’69) rescues him from history. Donvan was far more than the overly earnest flower child our faulty memories recall. This Glaswegian native son was a protest-folkie sensation on a par with Dylan before exploring a hyrbid of Celtic psychedelia for which he is best known. At three hours running time, this doc often veers into hagiography, but sit back with an electrical banana and enjoy the trip.
* TRINIDAD (dir. PJ Raval and Jay Hodges)—Whether you see gender reassignment as self-revelation or self-mutilation, the battlefield for transgender people rests in an unlikely place: a Colorado frontier town of 9,000. Trinidad’s hospital has been performing such medical transitions since the late 50s, earning this home of bars, brothels, and fundamentalist churches the sobriquet “Sex-change capital of the world.” This unwavering but respectful portrait depicts the transsexuals who came for an operation but decide to stay on to help others. Fascinating and humanizing.
UPSTREAM BATTLE (dir. Ben Kempas)—The persecution of the Native American did not reach resolution with a bonus plot of reservation land and casinos. In Northern California, hydroelectric dams have destroyed the salmon runs that provide food and commerce for the Hoopa and Yurok tribes. Wielding political savvy while still hewing to ancient rituals, a group of Native Americans takes on the energy companies. Their goal: close down the Klamath Hydroelectric Project. A heartbreaking but engrossing tale of the clash between ancient and modern civilzations. The warriors get their say, but so do the guileless company officials, who are puzzled by the fiery opposition to their role in bringing electricity to rural people.
Q&A with Haskell Wexler
Among film historians, cineastes, and those who simply follow the eternal ballet between light and shadows, cinematographer Haskell Wexler commands as much attention for a project as that project’s director. And with good reason: His painstaking approach to the craft—from the time in 1962 that he ran down an alley with a handheld camera to create a classic cinema trope—has transformed good films into great films. (But not without on-set battles; in his memoirs, Elia Kazan pronounced Wexler “a man of considerable talent” but also “a considerable pain in the ass.”) Centuries from now, film students will still be hypnotized by the results of Wexler’s work on In the Heat of the Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Days of Heaven, Bound for Glory, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, the latter two of which brought him Oscars.
Wexler, who will receive a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Woodstock Film Festival, is also known as an indefatigable supporter of progressive causes, from the Sandanistas to union leaders to more humane working conditions for the film industry. Even at 86, Wexler’s pugnacious approach to politics is evident in a brief phone interview.
You have been a champion of the Woodstock Film festival since its beginning. You are a gentleman of very specific and very passionate political ideals; you would not have become involved if it didn’t reflect your values.
Woodstock became known to me because of the map and the concert and the film. When it happened, it represented a generational spirit. And spirit shows itself profoundly in music. When they started the film festival, it felt like—if I can use one of those subjective words—it felt like they were dealing with that same spirit of who were are and who we want to be, what kind of world we want to live in. All those things relate to filmmaking. And filmmaking is what I do, what I love, what I get my pleasure out of.
We are careering into the Democratic Convention [as of press time]. I’m sure this will reignite people’s interest in Medium Cool [a documentary Wexler directed and shot during the 1968 Democratic Convention that folds the real-life protests into the film]. I wonder if you have been asked to appear at screenings of the film, and to talk about the experiences of shooting this film in 1968.
There have been a lot of groups of filmmakers who wanted me to join with them in filming around both conventions. And I have hesitated to want to cooperate with them for basically what you might call political reasons. Just like most of our history, I don’t think people really know the history. I think the history of 1968 is not in the film; it’s not what we shot on the streets. That’s the movie. That’s life, the movie. And I’m not interested in shooting life for the movie in 2008, because the players in the movie are much more sophisticated on the so-called security side. Their methods of sequestering any rights to assemble in any meaningful way have been so thoroughly militarized. And the danger of some kind of event—either by some crazy anarchist or by some provocateur—would create another movie that would not enlighten people, but make them more fearful and more [under] control of authority.
But the main difference between ’68 and now is that ’68 happened because on all levels, great masses of American people were not being heard by either the Democratic or the Republican parties. They were being ignored. So that was the essence of why they were demonstrating in the streets. And that is not clear from the so-called demonstrators [of this era] in front of the convention center—in either party, either candidate. Neither one of them are saying, “We are living in a lie.” No one is saying that the political system has lied to us in deadly ways.
When you accepted the Oscar for Best Cinematography for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1968, you said, “I hope we can use our art for love and peace.” I was wondering—
[Laughs] That’s right, I did say that! That’s true. I’m laughing at how cornball the words sound. And, actually, the Vietnam War was going on, and those words peace and love—you looked at an image in the back of your head of some girl in a T-shirt with her nipple showing, and some guy with long hair a kind of wild look in his eyes. So, those were revolutionary words.
Regarding the spirit of those words, which directors these days create work that help political advancement and peace and love? Is there somebody like a Hal Ashby [director of Bound for Glory] these days, whose art and attitudes and his political philosophy coalesce?
They’re out there, but they’re not out there. Amongst Hollywood directors, many of them—writers as well—do not get work. The corporatization of all our media, Bill Moyers speaks the best about that. It also goes with moviemaking. Look at the coming attractions at any time in any theater and see what it says in the [box] below: “Rated for violence, sexuality [etc.].” The established no-nos are the very thing [I look for in films]. When I see something that’s got a G rating, I figure, like a lot of people, that I don’t want to see this, it’s going to be boring. So that’s where [the movie industry] brought us, by changing our language and changing our response to images. In my documentary Who Needs Sleep? I quote George Orwell: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth can be a revolutionary act.”
One of the reasons [directors] don’t challenge [social injustices] is because those kinds of pictures don’t make money. Anti-war pictures are flops. If they’re flops, they’re failures. If they’re failures, nobody sees them. Getting back to Woodstock, [the] Woodstock [Film Festival] is a possibility for artistic, interesting, entertaining films to be showcased. [The festival] should also be a catalyst for people to see that those films that they think are worthy to be seen, are seen by more than the lucky people who come to Woodstock.
The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Haskell Wexler at the 2008 Woodstock Film Festival Award Ceremony on Saturday, October 4 by his friends and colleagues writer-director John Sayles and producer Maggie Renzi.
This article appears in October 2008.
